Intensive Therapy May Help Bipolar Depression

(WebMD)  Treating bipolar depression with intensive psychotherapy
plus medication may be more effective than brief psychotherapy plus
medication.

That news comes from a study of nearly 300 U.S. adults with bipolar
disorder, which is marked by extreme mood shifts from depression to mania.

All of the patients were experiencing bipolar depression (the depressive
phase of bipolar disorder) when the study started.

The patients who got intensive psychotherapy plus medication had their
depression lift sooner and were more likely to maintain stable moods than those
who got brief psychotherapy plus medication.

Intensive psychotherapy "should be considered a vital part of the effort
to treat bipolar illness," says researcher David Miklowitz, PhD, in a news
release.

Miklowitz and colleagues report their findings in the Archives of General
Psychiatry.




Bipolar Depression Study



All patients took mood-stabilizing drugs such as lithium during the study.
About 30% of patients were also taking antidepressants.

The researchers split the patients into two main groups:

One group got intensive psychotherapy (up to 30 psychotherapy sessions over
nine months) in addition to medication. Those patients got one of the following
three types of therapy:

• Family-focused therapy, which includes the patient and their relatives


• Cognitive behavior therapy, which teaches new coping strategies


• Interpersonal and social rhythm therapy, which includes solving
  relationship problems and setting healthy daily routines for sleep, exercise,
  and eating

Patients in the second group got brief psychotherapy (three sessions in six
weeks) plus medication. The brief therapy sessions included a videotape and a
workbook for patients to use.




Study's Results



The researchers followed the patients for one year.

On average, patients in the intensive-therapy group took nearly four months
to have their depression ease, compared with nearly five months for those in
the brief-therapy group.

By the end of the study, nearly two-thirds of the patients in the
intensive-psychotherapy group (64%) had had at least two months of stable
moods, compared with about half (51%) of those in the brief-therapy group.

Patients in the intensive-psychotherapy group were about 1.5 times more
likely to have stable moods during any given month of the study than those who
got brief psychotherapy.

Antidepressants were not responsible for the difference between the two
groups' outcomes, according to Miklowitz and colleagues.

The study doesn't show whether one type of intensive psychotherapy was more
effective than the others. Future studies should look into that, note the
researchers.



By Miranda Hitti
Reviewed by Louise Chang
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